A MAN in schmutters called the other day to declare that the jacket is now the most self-regarding item in the wardrobe. But really there is nothing new in this as the vintage footage of Sinatra demonstrates. In countless renditions of One For My Baby, Sinatra's upturned jacket collar became a moody affectation, as much an accessory to his boozy bravura as that hard-luck cigarette. Equally, the jacket hanging from one finger by its hook, then slung over the shoulder, served like a sort of rakish Masonic handshake for the rat pack, signalling a brotherhood of sexy insolence which in its time seemed cool and glamorous and a must for imitation round the world .

Indeed, at the weekend, there it was again, the jacket worn off-

centre, so to speak, not as a garment but as part of summit body language. The effect, however, was hardly what Sinatra would have called hip. But, not far from Birmingham, and out through the grand entrance of a

seventeenth-century mansion at Weston Park, the G8 gang streamed into the sunshine, each power leader fully jacketed, except one. As if to call attention to his serious insistence on informality, the British Prime Minister was in his shirt sleeves, jacket dangling from his right shoulder in improbable crooner mode. The hand of history was obviously occupied elsewhere, because it certainly wasn't helping our man on with his coat.

Keen summit-watchers also noted that Tony Blair's jacket was pigeon-coloured, as indeed were the trousers which accompanied it; a dove-ish hue in contrast to the hawk-like pitch of Clinton and Co, whose blazers suggested they were old-timers at a middle England bowls convention. There were some other idiosyncratic touches, though: true to his country's feeling for hierarchy, Japan's Ryutaro Hashimoto was badged-up with a rather superior star-burst pattern while Canada's Jean Chretien en-gaged in the contrary fashion rite of wearing his jacket with a sweatshirt actually on top. And in one more gesture to leisure the ties were off, yet somehow the effect was more stuffed-shirtish than if they'd stayed on. It's something to do with this habit of leaving only the top shirt button unfastened. Now, in global leaders we don't want the naffness of a Tom Jones cleavage, but one loosened neck button

does not a summer make: the result is tepid, weedy, even priggish.

But does any of this really

matter? Well, since artifice has come to rule political demeanour, the carefully packaged persona of today's politician resembles nothing so much as the care-fully packaged persona of a film star. Confronted by the universal gaze, no public figure can afford to look tacky because that implies an insult to the audience, and while aides may ensure against the broken zip or the ignominy of a dandruff build-up on a dark lapel, it's still a taxing business maintaining panache when the staff have retreated to press the second or third jacket of the day, and all around the world thunders in chaos.

In terms of jacket clout, of course, Margaret Thatcher remains the most obvious contemporary example. On that first televised day of the

opening of Parliament in 1989, she appeared, within four hours, in not one power jacket but two of identical imperial blue.

The first, her House of Lords number, displayed crystal buttons large enough to take some of the shine off the Monarch's crown; the second was cut with the kind of pushy revers the former Prime Minister deemed necessary for dispatch box confrontation.

Sinatra aside, the greatest exponents of the upturned collar were undoubtedly Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, and Elvis Presley. Today David Bowie, Jeremy Irons, and Alastair Campbell are fairly skilled practitioners, while at rainy horse events, the Queen appears with collar idly upstanding, just as Clare Short does everywhere else.

So far, though, it's a look which has totally escaped the boy scout fervour of William Hague. But the strolling jackets of the G8 crowd failed because they simply didn't look off-duty enough for a weekend at this time of year. A summer

jacket should be fun, carelessly crumpled and worn for the easy amusement of those little crackpot debates we hold with ourselves about whether a hand in a pocket with the thumb left outside is more Prince of Wales than Denis Skinner. Still, Labour's leap towards the glamour stakes is fascinating to behold. In America, People magazine has actually listed Britain's Prime Minister as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. Blair ranks alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Tom Selleck, and is the only politician to have made the grade. ''We should have him cloned,'' says the fashion designer, Diane Von Furstenberg. And now we know the sartorial chaos of Michael Foot's old donkey jacket is as redundant as a pit-head.